In my last two posts (#1) (#2) a discussion about Customer Experience Indexing (CEI) as a way to measure, plan and act on both emotional (loyal) and quantifiable (satisfied) customer feedback is underway. Many thanks go out to those who have offered feedback and questions so far. Keep them coming!

We’ve just started working our way down a list of six (I’ve adjusted slightly) areas:

1. Planning
   ->we are here
2. Optimizing the flow of both loyalty and satisfaction feedback
3. Analysis of feedback and calculation “CEI scores”
4. Using the data for short, mid and long term account plans for retention and growth
5. Using the data to locate new prospects using rule based company profiling and role-based targeting
6. Using the data to plan and deliver action plans aimed at reshaping customer attitudes and opinions

Last week the importance of having an approved plan and budget was stressed. Don’t start something like this unless the leadership at your company is willing to sign on as sponsor and be directly involved long term. The goal is to have sustainable ways to collect customer feedback, as well as having a formal business process to make sure collected feedback is actionable.

Every good CEI plan needs three basic components operating as pistons in a multi-mode data acquisition engine. Simple is better … so we look at them this way (with a few examples):

1. Ways to PUSH for customer feedback
   -customer satisfaction survey – SLA report card – quality/value audits
2. Ways to PULL customer feedback in –
   -customer conference, advisory board, focus group, social media
3. Ways to REPSOND consistently to customer feedback
   -CRM data integration; adjustments to communication, product, service level, project and account management strategies

Programs such as key account groups and client advisory panels will differ greatly in execution but the goals are the same … create a unified approach to the relationship with a particular customer, no matter how many points of contact there are and bring the right resources to the table at just the right time regardless of whether those customers are buying, implementing, maintaining or planning their future.

As I said last week (#2) a good way to get a CEI plan off the ground is with a simple but effective customer satisfaction survey. Here, response rates are king and the kinds of questions asked are important because this sets the waterline for both satisfaction and loyalty metrics for the entire program going forward.

I’m happy to go into greater detail about optimizing survey response rates –just let me know, but basically the tactics listed under item #7 from last week’s checklist (#2) have always worked very well for the teams I’ve been on. For example, we recently achieved 90% response to the 2008 Customer Satisfaction Survey at ReachForce.

Survey writing is next. Remember to use less than ten questions and keep them pithy. Simple language = good. And as a giver of many surveys, trust me – use multiple choice and/or ‘true or false’ as much as possible. Open ended questions make peoples’ hair hurt.

Two types of questions to think about:

1. Service fundamentals (quality function, basic expectations)
2. Advocacy (value, competitive advantage)

‘Service fundamentals’ questions are (logically) where the bulk of your ‘satisfied-type’ metrics will come from. They should be written to solicit quantifiable answers.

Specific example:
“How many times a year do you use service ABC?”

This example locks potential answers down to specific objects and links the all important use-frequency metric that is part of the weighting and scoring stuff we’ll talk about later.

‘Advocacy’ questions are for getting inside the respondents’ head and are often multi-dimension. These are where the bulk of your emotional ‘loyalty-type’ metrics will come from (like Net Promoter). They should be written as an attempt to empathize with the respondent.

Specific example:
“From list below, select the part of your ABC service plan that you DISLIKE most?”
And then for added dimension: “what do you LIKE most?”

In both cases a list of well thought out (and friendly tested) multiple choices will help hone in on what about your relationship is most important and vulnerable to the respondent. People generally ‘like’ (and are loyal to) things that are solving their pain = important to them. They generally ‘dislike’ (and aren’t loyal to) things that miss the expectations mark and force them to find a work-around, or as we say: “leave their pain on the table.”

The same duality is REALLY in play with the “Ultimate” advocacy question = “Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?” As I was taught as a young dad, “to be really, really sure you have to check their temperature from both ends.” I propose more detail on that, here, next post. Keep the feedback rolling.

Last week I expressed my thoughts about the differences between “loyal” and “satisfied” customers. I give lots of credit to Net Promoter for the role it has played promoting (sorry for pun) the concept of easy to digest relationship marketing metrics. That said – I personally need more than just an advocacy index to create and tune relationship strategy for my company’s customers.

Customer Experience Indexing is how I measure, plan and act on both emotional (loyal) and quantifiable (satisfied) customer feedback. Starting with item 1 below, my next several posts will open discussion about …

1. Optimizing the flow of both loyalty and satisfaction feedback
2. Analysis of feedback and calculation “CEI scores”
3. Using the data for short, mid and long term account plans for retention and growth
4. Using the data to locate new prospects using rule based company profiling and role-based targeting
5. Using the data to plan and deliver action plans aimed at reshaping customer attitudes and opinions

Customer feedback in the consumer marketing world has become an art form. Comparatively, B2B companies seem to lag far behind in having clear, sustainable ways to collect feedback, as well as having formal business process to make sure collected feedback is actionable.

The best way to get started is to make sure your company’s business leaders buy in and get involved. And the best way to make sure this happens is to write up a plan and make sure it gets budgeted. (Warning — Don’t even start a Customer Experience Measurement initiative if you don’t have this support. Without it, you will do more harm than good with your customers — as well as waste a lot of time and effort.)

While there are many variables to this type of planning by company size, type, etc., this blog series will cover quite a few customer feedback channels. The most common of all is the dreaded “annual customer satisfaction survey” (mine come with a few twists), and for a number of reasons it’s the best way to get a Customer Experience Measurement effort successfully off the ground.

To finish off this week’s post here is a checklist for getting your plan started:

1. Subscribe to an inexpensive online survey tool (a valuable thing you’ll find many uses for).
2. Figure $60 per customer as a good budget for getting the first year of your plan started (very large customer bases may need smaller scale plan)
3. Involve everyone with frequent customer facing responsibilities (Account managers, Project managers, etc.), segment your list up and assign “contact ownership” by role, (not just by account).
4. Meet with company stakeholders to craft role-based, multiple choice questions that need to be asked and answered. (We’ll talk about putting the scoring mechanism in place later). There are two basic types of questions to consider:
   • Service fundamentals (quality function, basic expectations
   • Advocacy (value, competitive advantage)
5. Test the questions on at least 2 friendly customers and ask them what questions they think you should ask.
6. Create and review the invitee list with your assigned contact owners. Usually, I like to keep the invitations focused on people you deal with (by role) at accounts that have been active within the past 12-18 months. Make sure email addresses and other contact information are accurate/current and that all contact owners “agree” (important) that inviting them into survey process is viable (formula is alive + working + accessible = invitee).
7. Clarify objectives, rewards and tactics. I’ve run a few of these initiatives so I tend to aim high.
   • Goals/objectives: If the invitee list is agreed to with the assigned contact owners (step 6), shooting for and achieving 90% response rates within 45 days is highly doable.
   • Rewards: Offer invitees a meaningful reward for taking time to complete the survey. There are many ideas here, but $20* Amazon.com e-gift certificates have always worked wonders for me. Offer the same $20* (per response) reward to the assigned contact owners as a way to motivate them to provide all important follow-up throughout the remainder of the 45 campaign.  *Note that we’ve already used 2/3s of the per customer budget.
   • The following tactics have proven highly successful in maximizing response rates:
     -Don’t ask more than 10 questions
     -Keep questions pithy
     -Avoid soliciting open ended responses as much as possible
     -Schedule email invitations/reminders to avoid heavy traffic
     -Leverage companywide email signature lines with reminders/links
     -Leverage all phone customer phone contact with reminders
     -Include a write up about the survey in your customer newsletter
     -Leverage outbound customer mailing (including billing) with reminders
     -Create fun response rate competition amongst the assigned contact owners
     -Get upper management involved with reminder phone calls, personal emails, etc.

To be continued. Please chime in with your own ideas and thoughts.

My Granddad used to say, when times are tough hang on to those that love you. Is the same true for tough economic times and B2B relationship marketing?

Your market is fundamentally made up of three types of targets. Customers you have, those you’ve lost, and potential accounts who – so far – have decided to do business elsewhere.

This is the first of a serial discussion (please join in) about measuring and connecting some specific customer experience management dots for minimizing customer churn, growing key accounts and identifying new revenue opportunities with companies that share common profiles with those with whom you do well.

Over the decades I’ve devised and managed dozens of customer retention programs. As a deliberate marketing proponent I was an enthusiastic Net Promoter adopter because of its implied relationship with corporate growth and its sheer simplicity – something very appealing when trying to achieve internal buy-in for major (sometimes costly) customer experience initiatives.

But in times like these where the outcome of a company’s customer experience strategy can make or break quarterly revenue plans, a one dimensional measurement such as NPS may help to know how many loyal customers there are, but isn’t very good for knowing about problems or –more importantly– how to fix them.

So while I love the idea of NPS as a simple advocacy index (as well as the role it’s had on increasing the importance business owners now place on these types of marketing metrics) I’ve found it to be just one of the many dots that need connecting to drive revenue growth. The most common mistake in the B2B world today is confusing loyal customers with satisfied customers.

The difference between satisfied customers and loyal customers is distinctly a matter of emotion. And while metrics dealing with both are very different and have unique implications – they are interdependent as two halves – quantifiable (satisfied) – and subjective (loyal) of the complete customer relationship picture.

This means customer feedback must be secured, structured, analyzed and acted upon in both concrete and abstract formats. To this end I have developed an arsenal of best practices that can be used for the following:

1. Optimize the flow of information and feedback that captures both quantifiable and emotional responses to “customer experience” surveys.
2. Analytical methodology for connecting and measuring quantifiable and emotional feedback to determine a “CEI,” or Customer Experience Index for each customer on your list.
3. Templates and guides for using CEI scores to craft short, mid and long term account plans for retention, up-selling and cross-selling.
4. Templates and guides for using highest CEI scores to locate new prospects using rule based company profiling and role-based targeting.
5. Templates and guides for using lowest CEI scores to plan and deliver action plans aimed at reshaping customer attitudes and opinions

Over the next few weeks my blog posts will address these subjects one-by-one. Again, I’d really appreciate your feedback as we go.

It’s the perfect storm – tough economic times … budget scrutiny … the Q4 numbers chase … budget planning for 2009. As Reachforce CEO Suaad Sait says, this Fall is a marketers ‘oh-crap’ moment when we start asking ourselves if there is enough fuel (or money to provide the fuel) in the lead generation engine to fulfill current year sales needs and fuel 2009 momentum.

Under old school marketing rules this storm would usually lead to 1 of 2 things … 1) slam on the breaks and try to hit NOP numbers by minimizing expense, or 2) a flurry of spray and pray direct marketing activities that seek elusive bluebirds against all odds. The big problem is that neither of these well worn paths does a very good job at motivating prospects who are in the middle of the funnel.

On this note, Josh Bernoff – Forrester’s Interactive Marketing expert – made a great point in his February 2, 2008 writing entitled “Strategies for Interactive Marketing in a Recession.” It’s more obvious to some than others, but most mid-funnel contacts are logically folks who are still in consideration mode or somehow on the fence about making a purchase. Mid-funnel contacts are not only abundant, they are literally bluebirds in waiting who just need to be earned.

Companies who opt to slam on the marketing brakes in an effort to save their way to success are essentially putting all of the pressure to motivate a purchase on their sales closers. This may work in certain instances, but it’s not very strategic, scalable or sustainable. Nor is motivating these people a matter of creating awareness with direct marketing. While consistent DM needs to be happening for sake of keeping the top of the funnel fed, it rarely has the sort of impact needed to push mid-funnel situations forward.

But social marketing applications like interactive webinars, e-communities, blogs and networking sites are an effective way to align B2B marketing’s work with the things that are most critical to driving mid-funnel situations to closure I.e. – establishing credibility, delivering proof points, deep-dive Q&A, earning “trusted partner” status and best of all – a structured, pragmatic way to capture, manage and execute against those issues/objections that most often create and add to mid-funnel traffic-jams.

In his easy to read, highly recommended article Bernoff points out three important social media attributes that help recession proof your marketing plan:

• Well-designed social applications are effective. Social programs leverage the voice of the customer to get messages carried further than ad impressions. If your message resonates with consumers, their word-of-mouth is a more effective medium than any of the traditional media.
•  They’re cheap. Advertising campaigns often run into millions of dollars. But Facebook pages and blogs are two examples of social programs that you can start for next to nothing. Even more sophisticated programs like a full-blown customer community typically don’t cost more than $50,000 to $300,000 to get going.
•  They motivate consumers in the middle of the funnel. Social applications like discussion forums are better than advertising at helping people in the consideration phase when they’re on the fence about purchasing. In a recession, improving consideration will be more cost-effective than blasting awareness messages at resistant consumers.